Stroheim

7. Merry-Go-Round

7 The historJ! of nch ~troheim film is a nightmare, but Merry-CoRound is perhaps the most difficult to discuss, not because ofits intellectual complexity but because of its confused authorship. Stroheim's other films-except for Walking down Broadway-were cut and mutilated by others, but at least he had done all the writing and filming. Merry-Co-Round, however, was not entirely his. Stroheim conceived the story ofMerry-Co-Round in the late winter of 1922. Soon after, he consulted with Irving G.Thalberg, the new head of production at Universal. The youthful Thalberg was a sharp businessman who believed in organization, discipline, and the idea that a director was a hired hand, not a law unto himself. In March, Stroheim offeredThalberg a twenty-six-page, single-spaced treatment and was encouraged to turn it into a scenario. By May 1922, after further consultation with Thalberg, Stroheim had completed a detailed shooting script and was paid five thousand dollars for the property .Thalberg, however, made further suggestions and demanded that the scenario be abridged. Well aware of the excesses of Foolish Wives, Thalberg insisted that Stroheim list the length of each shot so that he could get a solid concept of the film's running time. Of the several scripts Stroheim pre156 Merry-Co-Round 157 pared for Merry-Co-Round, the one in my possession, ofJune 20, contains 976 shots (plus additional unnumbered shots and intertitles that almost double that number). One might recall that The Birth oja Nation , which lasted almost three hours, had over 1,300 shots (many of them containing the rapid action ofchase scenes), whereas Stroheim's more slowly paced project in script form already totaled almost 2,000 shots, besides many longish titles. His script divides into six parts, each of which presumably represented a reel (lasting twelve to fourteen minutes), which would result in a film running about an hour and a half, the length ofmost contemporary productions. However, the wary Thalberg must have nodded, for in no possible way could this scenario be done in that running time, yet Stroheim received permission to begin. After extensive sets were built and props amassed-no easy task for a man who wanted to reproduce Vienna-shooting commenced on August 25.The film would be lavish, but, as Universal announced, it was not an "all Star" production; instead, it would rely on what Moving Picture lM>rld referred to as "an interesting group of players.'" This statement meant that Stroheim would not use established boxoffice names but would create-as did Griffith before him-his own "stars." Soon Stroheim forgot his promise to Thalberg to be reasonable. Briefsequences in the already long scenario began to expand.Again, there were lengthy shooting days that ran late into the evening and often into the morning. Stroheim frequently halted production because some background detail displeased him. After his directorial eye was satisfied, he would begin on his actors and stubbornly demand numerous retakes in his search for perfection. After five weeks or so, Stroheim had shot 271 scenes, totaling eighty-three thousand feet.2 The film's unrepeated footage ran three to four reels, even though Stroheim had not proceeded more than halfWay through the second of the script's six parts.Thalberg realized that the studio was going to get another four- or five-hour film, a commercial impossibility, so, on . October 6, he fired the meticulous director. In 1947, Stroheim recalled the situation in a letter to Peter Noble: When the picture was nearly three-fourths finished, I was discharged by Irving G. Thalberg during the absence of Carl 158 STROHEIM Laemmle because he did not want to take the responsibility of having me make another film as expensive as Foolish Wives had been. I was the first director in the history ofMotion Pictures to be taken off during the making of a film and it was a test case. I did not care anything about it from a financial standpoint because two weeks after I was engaged at five times the salary I got previously-by the Goldwyn Company-but naturally it broke my heart to see the work circumcised and castrated . I asked through my attorneys Universal Company [sic] to take my name off the film as author as well as director, but the exhibitors persisted nevertheless in putting my name on the marquees.3 Stroheim was by no means...